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BLUEROCK

BlueRock was founded in 2016 when Versant Ventures, a top-tier venture capital firm, and global pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG provided $225 million in Series A financing toward BlueRock’s mission to cure diseases characterized by significant cell loss and diminished ability to self-repair.

BlueRock is building an industry-leading platform that uses healthy cells to regenerate and restore the body’s native functions, with the goal of altering the course of the disease rather than just treating symptoms. Our platform is based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can be generated from cells in a normal blood draw from a consenting adult, and produced in large quantities using state-of-the-art cell manufacturing technologies.

BlueRock is pioneering the development of first-in-class universally compatible, allogeneic cell therapies that replace dead, damaged, or dysfunctional cells in patients with degenerative disease.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which form the basis of our cell therapy program, can be generated in unlimited quantities. When exposed to the correct sequence of biological signals, iPCSs can be turned into any cell type in the human body. Due to these qualities, BlueRock has chosen iPSCs to produce unlimited quantities of highly specific human cells in amounts that are required for therapeutic use.

Parkinson’s Disease

Through our Parkinson’s program, we are developing dopaminergic neurons that can replace the dopamine-secreting cells that have been lost in Parkinson’s patients. We plan to submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA in 2018, with the goal of treating the first patient that year. Our clinical program is now recruiting patients.

Parkinson’s is a degenerative disease that affects more than 10 million patients worldwide.

Incidence increases with age, but an estimated 4 percent of people with Parkinson’s are diagnosed before age 50.

The combined direct and indirect cost of Parkinson’s is estimated at $25 billion per year in the U.S. alone.

There is no cure for Parkinson’s, only therapies that treat symptoms or seek to slow disease progression.

Cardiac Diseases

BlueRock’s cardiac program seeks to replace heart muscle in patients who have lost muscle cells after a heart attack (myocardial infarction) or are suffering from chronic heart failure; both are leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Our science shows promise for improving and restoring the electrical and contractile function of injured hearts by introducing heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) that are derived from pluripotent stem cells.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women.

About 610,000 people die of heart disease in the U.S. every year, according to the CDC. That’s one in every four deaths.

Every year, about 735,000 Americans experience a heart attack.

Coronary heart disease is the most common form of heart disease, killing over 370,000 people annually.

There is no cure for heart disease, only therapies that treat symptoms or seek to slow disease progression.

BlueRock intends to expand its pipeline to include additional indications, addressing other diseases that are rooted in cell loss and the body’s inability to self-repair.